55 Pounds Down: Grapes and Nuts

More fruit. More nuts. Less of the other, non-fruit and non-nut stuff. I cut back on cereal to the point that I simply no longer eat it.

Eating more fruit does a few things. It’s a healthier choice than, say, chips. It can be in season, and benefiting local farms, so I can feel all sorts of good for contributing to my community. It also makes me less hungry, which means less of those other, less good things. Fruits as a regular snack, fruits on a daily basis

Believe it or not, that was a big thing for me. Sure, I ate grapes and apples and oranges all the time before. And by all the time, I mean every once in a while. And by every once in a while, I mean not nearly often enough. In the great big food pyramid of the sky, my fruity section was coming down. As it turns out, fruit flavored cereal is not equivalent to fruit. So when I say no nearly often enough, I really mean it.

And it’s still true. I probably eat less fruit than I should.

I probably eat fewer vegetables than I should, too.

That’s partly the fault of my palate. I’m not used to eating certain things. It’s also partly the fault of my cooking skills. I can cook some things particularly well. I continue to struggle, however, with mastering ways of preparing veggies. It took me forever to figure out how to caramelize an onion. I still don’t know what to do with an eggplant.

Also, nuts. Peanuts. Hazelnuts. Walnuts. Pistachios. Macademias. There are enough nuts, and nut mixes, to keep you busy for months just trying to keep up. Yes, almost every mix out there includes almonds, and almonds quickly became my least favorite nut, but that didn’t prevent me from finding ways of incorporating them.

Nuts, like fruits, make excellent snacks.

Nuts, like fruits, make excellent sides for breakfast, lunch, and even dinner.

You can also throw nuts like a chimp and hit people in the head, then pretend it wasn’t you, but I’m not sure I recommend the practice. You didn’t get it from me.

I started making my own mixes, combining honey roasted peanuts and little bits of chocolate chips and some other nut that wasn’t an almond. (The almonds are, in fact, everywhere, so get used to them.) I even included bits of cereal.

But the thing is, I can eat grapes, and I can eat nuts, but not Grapenuts. Or Raisin Bran. Or Cheerios. Or any other type of cereal. Because of the carbs, and the carbs in the milk, a bowl of cereal for breakfast became verboten. (See the section on carbs for details as to why.) This didn’t prevent me from maybe including a small amount of some variety or other in a mix of nuts.

For the record, when I make my nut mixes in the kitchen, I break out all sorts of bottles and jars and canisters and packages of nuts, and whatever other various bits I’ll include, like chocolate chips or M&Ms or Chex cereal, whatever; I’ll set out a pre-determined number of little cups, maybe five; then I’ll aim to make 15-carb cups full of nutty goodness. I’d measure out serving sizes and divide them equally amongst the cups, adding the total carb count as I went, until I reached, for five, a total of 75 carbs. I become a mad scientist, with scales and pencils and all the fun stuff you send scientific experiments awry. Try it yourself. Laugh maniacally as you do it. See if you can scare someone.